Work Text:
“Who’s the new girl?” Denki comes in to work a little late (just a little), but the manager of the kyabakura — Shishikura — is nursing a little (just a little) crush on her, so she wasn’t worried.
But it also means she missed out on introductions of the new hire, who she only caught a glimpse of. She’d slouched into one of the back kitchens, where the little appetizers and such were prepared.
Which was crazy — having that woman work in the back?! — she was a total looker. Bedroom eyes, model tall, voluminous hair (that still looked voluminous even in the haggard tragedy of a ponytail she’d tied it back in), and not to mention—
…well, she had huge knockers.
Why was she working a line cook job? She’d make bank being a hostess. Show up, wear something low-cut, and see the clients start lining up. Piece of cake.
All the ‘bank’ one could expect from desperate, lonely men who got all goo-goo eyed when a girl so much as batted her lashes at them, anyway. Giggled at their unfunny jokes. Squeezed their bicep, chatted them up, made them feel like a king for an hour or so.
Denki knew the game, and she didn’t mind playing it.
“Her name's Shinsou,” Mina says, always up for gossip. “Apparently,” she leans forward, they’re so close Denki can smell her citrus-sweet perfume. Momentarily, she remembers the flitting crush she had on her when she first started working here. “—she got in a fight at her last job, so she took up whatever was offered first. Needs the cash.”
Don’t we all.
“A fight?” Denki blinked, her copious amounts of mascara making her see the ends of her lashes with the motion. “Like, physical?”
“Yeah, like— she got arrested.”
“Damn,” she whistles. Imagines the collected, solemn looking woman knocking someone’s lights out and feels her stomach do a flip. Down girl. “Where was she even working? And who told you? Better not be bullshitting meeee.” She sing-songs the last part, knocking their shoulders together. Her gaze is unable to stop from flitting around, hoping for another look at this ‘Shinsou.’
Shinsou, Shinsou… she name coils around her mind.
“Uh oh,” Mina looks a mix between exasperated and amused. “I know that look.”
“What? What look?”
“That look,” Mina rolls her eyes, but her pretty smile glitters under the warm lighting of the club, catching the sheen of her gloss. “But anyway— she was working residency, I think—“
“Woah, a real job,” Denki cuts in.
“—that’s what Kirishima told me.”
Kirishima, one of the guys who acted as security; a bodyguard of sort. Rarely did clientele get violent — at least in Denki’s experience, but it did happen. Such was life when you had a bunch of drunk, delusional men in one concentrated area.
But Kirishima was a trustworthy source. No bullshitting there. He wouldn’t lie or exaggerate details. Actually, what he’d told Mina was probably a diluted version of the juicier reality. Kirishima was chivalrous and charitable like that— never wanted to paint someone in an unfavorable light unless they really shit the bed; to put it nicely.
Even still, throughout the night, Denki finds her gaze searching for the woman. Occasionally popping out of the backroom, to shadow around the edge of the club, just in her peripherals.
Uh oh, I know that look.
“Kami-chan,” one of her clients whines after the fifth time she's caught rubbernecking. Her gaze searching for a shadow when it had a spotlight to be focused on. A paying one. “What’s gotten into you? Am I boring you, Kami-chan?”
Yes, and your personality's shit steamed in a sewer, too. Get a hobby, huh! Denki would never have the courage to say something like that outside of jest, and even then probably not— especially with her paycheck on the line. But she could imagine a world where she was. Paid to be in this man’s hallucinatory bubble, though, she simply smiled sweetly and tittered.
“No way, Kosei!” She physically turned her body to face him, her knees squished together but one of her ankles brushing his calf. As expected, her short cocktail dress hiked further up her thigh with the movement, and as expected, the man’s eyes followed.
Complaint forgotten.
Denki didn’t hate her job or anything— on the contrary: she loved attention, she loved giving attention and getting it back. She liked watching guys trip over themselves, preen and stare at her like they wanted to melt into her. It was a hell of an ego trip. And she didn’t mind the things she had to say and do to boost their ego, too. Especially since she was getting paid for it. But there was no romance to it, no real sensuality. At least not for Denki. It was entirely artifice, she was just a pretty doll for them to play with, to pull the string on and listen to the prerecorded sentiments she had built in. She knew for most of them, they viewed her as pathetic, too.
And Denki, despite all her crassness, all her levity and sweet-nothings, wanted something real.
A romantic at heart, which was maybe even more pathetic.
It becomes more clear in the chill of the alley outside. She hadn’t bothered to put a coat on. She usually ran hot, the cold rarely bothered her. And the cigarette she was nursing left a pleasant furnace in her chest.
She always came outside on her breaks, but today she decided to haunt around the alley near the kitchens. Hoping she’d catch a glimpse of the pretty new shadow.
Lo and behold, a few minutes in, the door creaked open. Shinsou loomed in the doorway, the light of inside casting a halo around her. They stared at one another.
“Hey,” Denki lilts her voice, hoping the way she was leaning against the brick wall looked effortless. Cool. “Newbie! You on break, too?”
Shinsou startles where she'd frozen. She closes the door behind her in an oddly polite way, shoving her crossed arms tightly around each other, hugging the jacket she’d put on snugger to herself. She eyes up Denki warily, and Denki pretends she’s not striking a pose.
“…Yeah.” Ooh. Denki thought of that one American song— with a voice that is dark like tinted glass. It was deep and a little raspy. The kind of voice that could sell Denki bottled air, probably.
“First break of your career here, nice,” Shinsou winces at that— Denki hadn’t meant any harm by it, but of course she tended to speak before thinking it through. When she wasn’t getting paid to think it through. She had the curse of being socially aware enough to know exactly when she’d stepped on an eggshell, too.
Attempting diversion, she holds the pack out, giving a little shake. “Want one?”
Also the wrong thing to say, apparently. Shinsou’s nose wrinkles, holding a hand up.
“No thanks, not my thing.”
Denki could just imagine the Sims minus sign above her head. Wow, she was really bungling this.
She lets the half-smoldered cigarette fall out of her hand and stomps the butt down with her mean little stilettos like she meant to do it all along. Shinsou leans microscopically closer. Or maybe she’s the delusional one now.
“Well, what is?” three times the charm, maybe. “Your thing, I mean.”
One side of Shinsou’s mouth lifts into a smile. A wry one, but a smile nonetheless.
“Why are you asking?”
“It’s nice to get to know your co-workers,” Denki simpers, tilting her head, her earring jingling with the motion.
“Right,” Shinsou’s eyes follow the earring, then flit off to the side. Are you shy? Denki wants to tease her, likes watching her serious facade splinter a little. “Getting through this day is ‘my thing’ right now.”
“I hear that,” Denki snickers. “Ya' know— I saw you and thought you were a new hostess.”
“What?” Shinsou looks bewildered. Her ponytail had loosened since Denki saw her earlier, wavy wisps of purple hair framing her sharp, beautiful features.
“Yeah,” Denki licks her bottom lip. Shinsou’s eyes track the motion. She wonders if she’d still mind the cigarette taste. “You’re like, objectively gorgeous.”
“Objectively,” Shinsou drones the word out, like Denki’s lying to her face. And Denki might lie for a living, but she’s not lying right now.
“Objectively, yeah,” Denki does not look down at Shinsou’s chest. She’s a battle-hardened solider like that. “Like a model. Tall and so beautiful it’s…hehe, kinda intimidating?”
“Haven’t heard that one before.” Shinsou’s expression looks uncomfortable, but she’s not leaving or telling Denki to fuck off. And her face is getting redder by the second. But maybe it’s from the cold.
Or maybe…
“People are really stupid, then.” She blurts, and Shinsou’s posture relaxes a fraction. Her lopsided smile is back, a hint of her perfectly straight teeth peeking through. “Actually, maybe it’s good you’re not a hostess— you’d totally snatch up my guys!”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You would, you so would.”
“…Not interested.”
“In money?” Everyone had to be, to some extent. Something slips off her shoulder.
“In—“ It’s so quiet in the alley, even with the city buzzing around them, Denki hears her swallow. “In guys.”
Well, Denki had a sneaking suspicion. Her mouth wasn’t that interesting, Shinsou’s gaze seems to think otherwise. But getting as close to a verbal confirmation as possible is nice. Really nice.
Shinsou’s jaw clenches, there’s a challenge in her gaze. She’s simultaneously reserved and has just laid a very important card on the table. Denki's not sure why, maybe to test her? Denki's always been bad with tests, but she knows she can ace this one.
Denki smiles, easy as a sunrise. “Same.”
Shinsou’s jaw stops clenching and her eyes widen a fraction. She opens her mouth, but doesn’t say anything. But Denki knows the questions she wants to ask. But the silence stretches.
Then, Shinsou’s eyes glance down. Farther than where they were straying before. Before Denki can figure out where she’s looking, she reaches out — across the chasm of the alleyway.
Her pale hand stark under the streetlights, a finger gently hooks under the strap that Denki had only half noticed had slipped down her shoulder, and lifts it back into place.
For the first time that night, her skin breaks out into goosebumps.
It’s not from the cold. Never is.
“Sorry, it was—“ Shinsou’s thick eyebrows scrunch cutely. As if she has to explain herself. “Your strap was falling down.”
Denki collects herself quickly, bounces back into what’s comfortable to her. Likes seeing Shinsou get flustered and squirm. Might be trying to distract from the way Shinsou is close to making her flustered and squirmy.
She shimmies her shoulder with purpose, until she feels the loose strap droop. “Aw, it slipped again.”
Shinsou looks like she's going to reach over again, but of course, they're running out the clock—
“Shinsou!” A voice from inside yells.
Break’s over.